A growing threat for military and commercial aircraft is the possibility of being shot down by a Man Portable Air Defense (MANPAD) missile; for example a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. Currently, the only option to protect an aircraft from this type of threat is an aircraft-mounted protection system. This generally requires that each individual aircraft be outfitted with a costly missile defense system.
Conventional aircraft-mounted missile defense systems utilize aircraft-mounted missile tracking systems and laser energy to jam and disrupt the MANPAD missile targeting systems. The aircraft-mounted laser system is particularly adapted to disrupt the infrared targeting system of the MANPAD missile. A substantial drawback of these types of systems is that they are costly and must be mounted on each individual aircraft. A ground-based laser system is not feasible since the laser must generally be directed into the missile seeker, which is pointed at the aircraft.